Institutional Investors Huddle as Chainlink's RWA Alliances Fuel Long-Term Bet

Chainlink's native token, LINK, fell 8% below a critical support level of $17 in late October, marking a key test for the asset despite a record token buyback since August. The price decline follows a week of significant on-chain activity, with large investors withdrawing millions of LINK tokens from exchanges, signaling confidence in the network's long-term potential. Analysts remain divided, with some viewing the pullback as a consolidation phase ahead of a potential breakout, while others warn of further downside risks if support levels fail.

Large-scale withdrawals from major exchanges like Binance and Bitget have drawn attention from market observers. Over the past nine days, 39 newly created wallets collectively withdrew 9.94 million LINK tokens ($188 million) from Binance, with additional transfers totaling 2.617 million LINK ($46.72 million) from Bitget. These movements, attributed to institutional holders or strategic investors, suggest a shift toward long-term holding rather than short-term trading, according to a Yahoo Finance report. Glassnode data further supports this trend, showing the Holder Accumulation Ratio at 98.9%, indicating nearly all active holders are increasing their LINK holdings.

Chainlink's recent partnerships with real-world asset (RWA) platforms like Balcony, Streamex, and Pharos have bolstered its utility in tokenizing traditional assets. Balcony, for instance, leverages Chainlink's oracle infrastructure to tokenize $240 billion in property assets, creating tamper-proof digital registries for public sector use, according to a PR Newswire release. Similarly, Streamex integrated Chainlink's Proof of Reserve and Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol (CCIP) to verify gold-backed stablecoin GLDY's reserves and enable cross-chain transfers, according to a Bitget post. These collaborations underscore Chainlink's expanding role in bridging traditional finance and blockchain, with institutions increasingly adopting its infrastructure for transparency and compliance, as noted in a Coinotag report.

Ondo Finance, another key partner, announced a strategic alliance with Chainlink to tokenize over 100 equities and ETFs, using the oracle network's price feeds and CCIP for cross-chain interoperability, according to an FXStreet report. The partnership aims to bring financial institutions on-chain, with Ondo's tokenized assets now spanning 10 blockchains and $320 million in total value locked, according to a CoinDesk article. Chainlink's co-founder Sergey Nazarov emphasized the collaboration's potential to redefine capital markets by enabling programmable, composable financial instruments, as FXStreet reported.

Despite these developments, technical indicators paint a mixed picture. LINK currently trades near the 20-day simple moving average (SMA), with a potential breakout above $21.45 seen as a catalyst for a move toward $22–$24. However, a breakdown below $17 could trigger a test of the $15.30 level, according to Yahoo Finance. The Relative Strength Index (RSI) remains neutral but trending upward, suggesting growing buying interest. Analysts like Don on X have highlighted a bullish flag pattern since August, projecting a possible $35 target for LINK in 2025.

The largest token buyback since August—driven by the Chainlink Reserve—adds another layer of intrigue. By converting off-chain revenue from enterprise clients into LINK and storing it in a strategic reserve, the network aims to stabilize token supply and boost demand. This strategy aligns with broader trends in RWA tokenization, where institutional adoption is driving demand for Chainlink's data and interoperability solutions, according to a Yahoo Finance article.